The Test
by Livi-Love
Summary: Shredder interrogates his employees.


**T! M! N! T! Does not belong to me!

* * *

**The room was dimly lit, a solitary candle flickering in the man's hand. Shadows danced on the stone walls, some forever hiding in the corners of his eyes as if they were a secret that didn't want to be discovered. His taut face surveyed the vicinity, ragged breaths slipping off his lips and echoing menacingly in the otherwise silent room. Eyes as black as the corners of the cell he was located in stared out of their slightly sunken sockets, resting on the scene in front of him.

Sitting on plastic grey chairs that had a leg which was shorter than the other three were an assortment of employees who were wondering why they were there. Their gaze wavered towards the door on the far side of the room as they self-consciously calculated how long it would take for them to reach it, only to return to the man with the candle.

He breathed in sharply, his eyes dangerous. All faces jerked towards his grave face. "Someone," his voice was soft but by no means kind, "has betrayed me."

No one dared say a word.

The man spun on his heel and strode towards the closest wall to them. There was a small board hanging on it, a white piece of material acting as a curtain. He shot his minions one last menacing look before taking hold of the cloth and yanking it off. Nobody in the room paid it any attention as it fluttered to the ground.

On the board was a photo of one of the walls that made up their captor's throne room. In what they assumed was scarlet paint was a caricature of the Shredder, who was wearing a tutu with a speech bubble protruding from his butt saying, 'toot'.

"A certain person entered my private quarters and tainted it with... with this!" He poked the photo violently and where his finger came out of it, there was a noticeable hole. "No one is leaving until the culprit's identity has been discovered. So... which one of you was it?"

Hun gulped.

Karai averted her gaze.

Stockman rolled his eye.

Chaplin played with his fingers.

A Foot ninja named Chad scuffed the ground with pointed toes.

Saki put his hands behind his back and studied each of the suspects. Any one of them could have done such a... a repulsive, disgusting, treacherous thing. They all dedicated their lives for him, sure, but they all had a motive... and they could easily be planning an uprising unbeknownst to him.

"Too cowardly to admit it was you, huh?" he spat, his temple throbbing. "I see... I had thought better of you. I trusted all of you but now you have destroyed my confidence in you like the snivelling worms you are."

"Father," Karai said, emphasizing the word heavily to remind him that she was very close to him and should therefore be treated a lot more nicely, "I would never do such an inhuman thing to your reputation."

"Master," Hun piped up in the politest voice a street punk like him could manage, "I would rather die than make a picture like that."

Chaplin pointed at it and remarked, "It wasn't me, Mr. Shredder Sir. If I was to draw a portrait of you, I would spend much more time on it... not that I would do it on your wall or anything! Geez, what were they thinking? It looks like-"

"Looks? How can you tell what it looks like?" Stockman snorted, squinting. "I can barely see anything. Could you turn the lights on?"

The jar Stockman's brain was in flew off its chair and smashed into the ground. Saki stood over him with his fist raised, steam coming out of his ears. Chad shifted away from the fragments of glass while Chaplin stared at the remains in horror.

"I don't recall saying that you could tell me what to do like you were better than me," stated Saki coolly. "I am the interrogator and only I will be asking the questions around here. Do you understand?"

Stockman twitched.

Saki retrieved a jar from beneath one of his roomy trouser legs and instructed Chaplin to put the brain into it. The redhead did so, his heart fluttering as his fingers made contact with it. He was touching the smartest person in the world's brain! He was touching The Baxter Stockman's brain! How honoured- how _privileged_ he felt right then. Why, Chaplin felt himself grow so much smarter as his fingers tingled with brain juice.

Once in the liquid contained in the jar, Stockman connected his brain to the voice synthesizer. "I apologize for my insolence," he said even though he did not mean this at all. "I should have known better than to think that I could ask for such a trivial thing."

His master didn't acknowledge him with even a brief nod. Instead, Saki pressed on with the matter at hand. "Such a crude task, you might think, was most likely performed by the turtles. However, that does not explain how they could have broken in, not leave any fingerprints and disable my secret camera without setting off any alarms. This leads me to know that it was an insider who carried out the crime."

Saki pointed at Hun, who hadn't sucked up to him for more than ten minutes. "You! Where were you between ten pm and five am?"

Hun began to sweat. Tripping over his own words, he mumbled, "I- I was at, across the city, orgin- organizing a hi... heist on one of Age... nt Agent Bishop's shipments."

Saki's finger transferred to Chad. "What about you? What were you doing between the aforementioned times?"

"I was in my sleeping quarters," Chad said in an unusually deep voice.

"Chaplin?"

"In the lab."

"Karai?"

"I was asleep as well."

"Stockman?"

"I was in the laboratory. BUT," Stockman's eye pressed against the side of the jar, "Doctor Chaplin was not there."

"Ah ha!" Saki rounded on Chaplin, smirking. "Your alibi doesn't match the others. You fouled my wall with that immature, lying piece of graffiti!"

"No!" Chaplin raised his hands, the syllable coming out strangled. "I swear, Master Saki, it wasn't me who did such a twisted thing. I was in the lab!"

"He lies!" screamed Stockman. "He was not there. Check the security camera. Fire him for mutiny!"

Chaplin looked into Saki's eyes and nearly burst into tears. He placed his hands on his face. "Okay, I lied. I'm sorry! I wasn't in the lab."

"I knew-"

"I was outside Mistress Karai's living space. I wanted to ask her if she was busy tomorrow. There's a cool movie and I thought... you know... she could come and see it with me."

Saki faltered out. He closed his mouth. He opened his mouth. He closed his mouth. He turned away and scratched his chin. He narrowed his eyes. Then, very slowly, he glared at Chaplin over his shoulder. "What... did she say?"

"She didn't answer and when I went in, she wasn't in there."

Saki hadn't wanted it to end this way. He said, "Karai... you did it? Why?"

She squeezed her kneecaps. "I apologize for lying to you, but I assure you that I did not commit the crime. I... was really in the kitchen. I am sorry, but I cannot take it anymore. The diet you gave me is impossible to live with."

"I just want you to look presentable and be powerful, Karai. Is that so much to ask?" he whispered.

"However," she added, wanting to redeem herself, "on the way back to my room, I crossed paths with Hun. He had something red on his face, and when I asked what it was, he told me to mind my own business and was very impolite."

"Hun? You said you were across town." Saki crossed his arms.

The large man's face reddened. "I... I... Karai is lying, my Lord. She simply wants to put the blame on me."

Karai got to her feet and reached into her outfit's pocket. She pulled out a dozen empty packets of junk food. She threw them at the ground and shouted, "There. Happy?"

"Karai would not lie to me twice," Saki responded. "Hun, you will tell me the truth before I scrape the truth out of your cold, mangled body."

"I was with Chad!"

Saki turned to Chad, unbelieving. "You? You were asleep..." He gritted his teeth. "You lied to me as well? What was it that the pair of you were conspiring? Were you both attempting to start a rebellion? Answer my question! I am your master!"

Hun glanced at Chad, who sighed. Chad peeled her mask off and dropped it onto the floor.

Saki widened his eyes in surprise. "You're a girl?"

Chad nodded, brushing her billowing blond hair out of her young face with her fingers. Her rosy pink cheeks contrasted heavily with her otherwise porcelain white skin. "I should have told you when I joined, but yes. I am female. I thought that you would think me too weak if you knew this, so I pretended to be a boy."

"But... why were you with Hun?"

Hun jumped when his name was mentioned before pretending that he hadn't heard it. He started to whistle out of tune.

"We have been dating for two months," announced Chad, gazing at Hun lovingly. He smiled back shyly. "Most nights, when everyone is asleep, we meet up in the dojo and... you know."

If Saki had been a human, he would have reddened. Instead, he turned his head to the side and looked up in an attempt to remain dignified. "I don't think I really want to know. So the red on your face that Karai observed was...?"

"Lipstick."

Saki took everything in. "So the only person who told the truth was Stockman?"

Nothing made sense anymore. Out of everyone, the scientist was the most likely to ruin his plans... so he thought, anyway.

"I will see the rest of you in the morning and then I will sort out these issues once and for all," he said. Everyone except Stockman paled. "Stockman..." Saki's left eye twitched. "Keep up the good work."

Everyone left. Saki went into his throne room, locking the door behind him. Truly alone, he plunged his hand into his pocket and pulled out a spray can.

"Works every time."


End file.
